High-level panel formed to resolve defence pay disparity

New Delhi - The government Friday set up a high level committee headed by Cabinet Secretary Ajith Seth to resolve pending issues concerning defence personnel and ex-servicemen, including the one-rank-one-pension demand of retired persons.

The panel, set up on the orders of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will also have Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister Pulok Chatterjee and Defence Secretary Shashi Kant Sharma as members, apart from secretaries of departments of expenditure, ex-servicemen welfare and personnel and training.

"The government has decided to constitute a committee, under the chairpersonship of cabinet secretary, to look into pay and pension-related issues of relevance to defence services personnel and ex-servicemen," an official release from the cabinet secretariat said here.

The committee, interestingly, does not have any defence officers as members.

The terms of reference will be to look into issues of defence personnel such as common pay-scale for in-service junior commissioned officers and other ranks; initial pay-fixation of lieutenant colonels, colonels, and brigadiers of the army and their equivalents in the other two armed forces; review and enhancement of grade pay; placing all lieutenant generals in the higher administrative grade plus pay scale; and grant of non-functional upgradation (NFU) to armed forces personnel.

The panel will also look into the ex-servicemen issues such as one-rank-one-pension, enhancement of family pension, dual family pension, and family pension for mentally and physically challenged children of armed forces personnel on marriage.

The panel will be serviced by the department of expenditure and it has been empowered to co-opt any other member into the committee.

The government has given an Aug 8 deadline for the committee to finalise its recommendations and submit its report to the prime minister, the release said.